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Victorian restoration
please note:
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{{Short description|Movement to refurbish and rebuild Church of England churches and cathedrals}}{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2020}}{{multiple image
- the content below is remote from Wikipedia
- it has been imported raw for GetWiki
| direction = vertical
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| footer = St Albans Cathedral before and after restoration in 1880. The amateur architect Lord Grimthorpe's rebuilding of the west front removed the cathedral's Perpendicular architectural features, replacing them with his own designs. These are considered unsympathetic to the fabric of the building, and were criticised by commentators even at the time.BOOK, Perkins, Rev. Thomas, The Cathedral Church of St Albans, London, George Bell & Sons, 1903,weblink
| image1 = St-albans-alpha-0002-abbey-west-end-old.jpg
| alt1 = St Albans Abbey west front prior to restoration in 1880. A large perpendicular window and a flat roof.
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| image2 = St-albans-cath.jpg
| alt2 = St Albans Abbey following restoration. A mix of architectural styles and a pitched roof.
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}}
The Victorian restoration was the widespread and extensive (wikt:refurbish|refurbishment) and rebuilding of Church of England churches and cathedrals that took place in England and Wales during the 19th-century reign of Queen Victoria. It was not the same process as is understood today by the term building restoration.Against a background of poorly maintained church buildings, a reaction against the Puritan ethic manifested in the Gothic Revival, and a shortage of churches where they were needed in cities, the Cambridge Camden Society and the Oxford Movement advocated a return to a more medieval attitude to churchgoing. The change was embraced by the Church of England which saw it as a means of reversing the decline in church attendance.The principle was to "restore" a church to how it might have looked during the "Decorated" style of architecture which existed between 1260 and 1360, and many famous architects such as George Gilbert Scott and Ewan Christian enthusiastically accepted commissions for restorations. It is estimated that around 80% of all Church of England churches were affected in some way by the movement, varying from minor changes to complete demolition and rebuilding.Influential people like John Ruskin and William Morris were opposed to such large-scale restoration, and their activities eventually led to the formation of societies dedicated to building preservation, such as the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. In retrospect the period of Victorian restoration has been viewed in a generally unfavourable light, though it did result in the rediscovery of some long-lost features and some churches that would otherwise have fallen into disrepair were saved.| width = 300
| footer = St Albans Cathedral before and after restoration in 1880. The amateur architect Lord Grimthorpe's rebuilding of the west front removed the cathedral's Perpendicular architectural features, replacing them with his own designs. These are considered unsympathetic to the fabric of the building, and were criticised by commentators even at the time.BOOK, Perkins, Rev. Thomas, The Cathedral Church of St Albans, London, George Bell & Sons, 1903,weblink
| image1 = St-albans-alpha-0002-abbey-west-end-old.jpg
| alt1 = St Albans Abbey west front prior to restoration in 1880. A large perpendicular window and a flat roof.
| caption1 =
| image2 = St-albans-cath.jpg
| alt2 = St Albans Abbey following restoration. A mix of architectural styles and a pitched roof.
| caption2 =
}}
Background
File:Lich Cath Face.jpg|thumb|200px|right|The west front of Lichfield Cathedral as restored by George Gilbert ScottGeorge Gilbert ScottA number of factors working together led to the spate of Victorian restoration.From the time of the English Reformation onwards, apart from necessary repairs so that buildings might remain in use, and the addition of occasional internal commemorative adornments, English churches and cathedrals were subjected to little building work and only piecemeal restoration. This situation lasted for about 250 years with the fabric of many churches and cathedrals suffering from neglect."MEMBERWIDE">Driving forces
The Cambridge Camden Society
One of the main driving forces for the restoration of churches was the Cambridge Camden Society (CCS), which was founded in 1839 by two Cambridge undergraduates, John Mason Neale and Benjamin Webb, as a club for those who shared a common interest in Gothic church design.Clark 1962, pp.155, 160â1. It rapidly became popular: its membership increased from 8 to 180 in its first 12 months.Eastlake 1872, pp. 196â7. Although initially a society for recording and discussing medieval church features, the members of the CCS soon began to expostulate in their journal The Ecclesiologist and particularly in their Few Words to Church-builders of 1844 that the only "correct" form for a church building was the "middle pointed" or "Decorated" style,Clark 1962, p.170â1. in which churches had been built during the hundred years centred on 1300. Ecclesiology obviously struck a chord in society: it was closely linked with the ongoing interest in medievalism and the Gothic Revival.Eastlake 1872, p. 187.The CCS's firm insistence on one style being correct proved to be a beacon for those who were no longer able to judge for themselves what was "good" in architectureâthe certainties of the Vitruvian rules having lost their power during the Romantic movement that had been in vogue since the middle of the 18th century.Clark 1962, p. 160. The CCS stated that there were two possible ways in which a church could be restored. As Kenneth Clark put it, they said that one could "either restore each of the various alterations and additions in its own style, or restore the whole church to the best and purest style of which traces remain".Clark 1962, p. 173. The Society wholeheartedly recommended the second option and since virtually every medieval church had at least some small remnant of decorated style, maybe a porch or even just a window, the whole church would be "restored" to match it. If the earliest portions were too late, then it was a candidate for a complete rebuild in the "correct" style."To restore," The Ecclesiologist declared, "is to revive the original appearance ... lost by decay, accident or ill-judged alteration". They did later admit, though, that such "restoration" might create an ideal state that the building had never been in.Oxford Movement
Church restorations were also strongly influenced by the Oxford Movement, which advocated moving the centre of importance in the church from preaching to the sacrament of the Eucharist: from the pulpit to the altar. Consequences of this included moving the pulpit from a more central position to the side of the church, replacing box pews with open pews, creating a central aisle to give a better view of the altar, and the removal of galleries. Another consequence was that a larger chancel was required for the associated ritual.{{CitationActivities
Persuaded by the Cambridge Camden Society that Decorated Gothic was the only correct style, and by the Oxford Movement's theories concerning the nature of worship, a spate of "restoration" was soon under way. Some figures give an idea of the scale. A total of 3,765 new and rebuilt churches were consecrated in the forty years up to 1875, with the most active decade being the 1860s in which there were more than 1,000 such consecrations.BROOKS>FIRST1=CHRISPractitioners
Famous architects such as George Gilbert Scott, Ewan Christian, William Butterfield and George Edmund Street became enthusiastic "restorers" and the wave of restoration spread across the country so that by 1875 something like 80% of all churches in England had been affected in some way.File:Bath Abbey Fan Vaulting - July 2006 crop.jpg|thumb|left|The nave of Bath Abbey â Scott's stone fan vaulting that replaced the ancient wooden ceiling to the original design by Robert and (William Vertue]].JOURNAL, Luxford, Julian M, In Dreams: The sculptural iconography of the west front of Bath Abbey reassessed, Religion and the Arts, 4, 3, 314â336, 10.1163/156852901750359103, 2000, )In 1850 Scott wrote a book A plea for the faithful restoration of our Ancient Churches, in which he stated that "as a general rule it is highly desirable to preserve those vestiges of the growth and history of buildings which are indicated by the various styles and irregularities of its parts". However, he did not follow this principle in practice, generally sweeping away all later changes and reconstructing the church in a uniform early style, sometimes on the evidence of just one remaining early feature.BOOK,weblink Architectural conservation and restorationOpposition
There were opponents. The Reverend John Louis Petit was a staunch and well-respected opponent from his first book, Remarks on Church Architecture (1841), until his death in 1868. The Archaeological Society was founded in 1845 by antiquarians anxious to bring the love of old buildings to a wider audience. Although John Ruskin was generally in favour of new buildings in an early Gothic style,Eastlake 1872, p. 273. in 1849 he wrote in The Seven Lamps of Architecture that it was not possible "to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture". The Society of Antiquaries of London urged in 1855 that "no restoration should ever be attempted, otherwise than ... in the sense of preservation from further injuries".A later vociferous opponent was William Morris who campaigned against the proposed restoration of St John the Baptist Church, Inglesham, in the 1880s and started the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) in 1877 when he heard of the proposed restoration of Tewkesbury Abbey by Scott.WEB,weblink Victorian Wolverhampton: Churches and Religious Buildings. 1 â The Anglicans, Wolverhampton History and Heritage WebsiteIn retrospect
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}}From a 20th-century perspective the process of Victorian restoration has often been viewed unfavourably, with terms such as "ruthless", "insensitive" and "heavy-handed" being commonly used to describe the work done.See, for instance, Reed 1997, p.338: "Much of his [George Gilbert Scott's] restoration work was undoubtedly insensitive, heavy-handed, and ruthless"; and SMITH>FIRST1=J. T.References
{{reflist|colwidth=33em}}Sources
- BOOK
- BOOK
- WEB,weblink Architecture at the Service of Ideology: William Morris, the Anglican Church and the Destruction, Restoration and Protection of Medieval Architecture in Victorian England
- BOOK
- BOOK
- BOOK
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